Many college students, both in Japan and abroad, are manga and anime fanatics; good sources for further links to explore can be found at two of the sites maintained by anime fans on the Web -- Jay Harvey's The Anime Web Turnpike and the Anime Resource List found at the University of Waterloo in Canada. For manga, check out Manga in Japan and the extensive page of links to other manga pages maintained at the same site. 

Be aware, however, that both the manga and the anime worlds lead off into some dark corners filled with explicit adult themes not suitable for all viewers; check out the Parent's Guide to Anime for some useful guidance... 

One of the most phenomenal recent examples of the popularity (and wide-ranging influence) of manga and anime on contemporary Japanese culture appeared in March 1997 with the release of the film version of EVANGELION, a break-out science fiction view of earth's not-so-rosy future. Full of the usual violence and mayhem, the film nonetheless addresses a number of interesting (if not esoteric) questions about the nature of existence and humankind's place within it.

Just how important manga appear to be in today's Japan can be glimpsed by reading the Japan Information Network's featured article from July 1999 titled "WELCOME TO MANGA TOWN: Can Cartoons Save Japan's Regional Economies?".

An on-line magazine out of Tokyo, ALLES, featured conversations with two manga artists (Buichi Terasawa and Naoki Yamamoto) in their October 1995 issue and with three anime directors (Mamoru Oshii, Shoji Kawamori and Koji Morimoto) in November 1995. Another on-line publication, NODE246, featured an interview with Katsuhiro Otomo (the artist responsible for Akira, perhaps the most famous manga ever) talking about his latest anime entitled MEMORIES. Another conversation in the same inaugural issue spends time talking with Ken Iishi and Koji Morimoto about their attempt to link anime and techno music in a CD-based project they call EXTRA. The September 1995 issue of Tokyo Journal, too, featured a discussion of this unusual blend of animation and popular music in an article on the Tokyo Trance Express. 

During the week of February 2 - 9, 1996, The Japan Times on-line weekly selection of features incorporated an article entitled "Comic Depicts One Man's Wartime Horror" about Kojima Kiyofumi (76) and his experiences at the conclusion of World War II, part of a "document comic" series carried in Shonen Magazine. The article (by Tai Kawabata) details how manga have come to play a major role in communicating timely and important perspectives usually confined to more traditional print media. Check it out! 

of useful print resources...